Ministers savage UN report calling for abolition of UK's bedroom tax

A United Nations report on UK housing conditions calling for the suspension of the bedroom tax has been dismissed by the government as partisan, discredited and a "misleading Marxist diatribe".

The full report by the UN's special investigator on housing, Raquel Rolnik, who made a research trip to Britain last August and September to look at housing provision, was published by the UN on Monday.

Affordable homes facing demolition because of bedroom tax

Three-bedroom homes are being condemned to demolition by housing associations because the coalition's bedroom tax has made them too expensive for tenants to live in, the Observer can reveal.

Despite a national property shortage, providers of affordable homes are unable to find people who can meet the cost of living in a home with an extra bedroom and are, in some cases, planning demolitions. In Liverpool, one housing provider, Magenta Living, has admitted that "with changes to welfare benefits there is very little prospect of letting upper three-bedroom maisonettes in the current climate".

Author of bedroom tax report defends findings after government's attack

A United Nations special investigator has said that she had never faced such a hostile reaction from a country after her preliminary findings on the coalition's bedroom tax policy prompted a vicious response from the rightwing media and Conservative politicians.

The UN's special rapporteur on housing, Raquel Rolnik, a Brazilian academic, was dubbed a "Brazil nut" and "a dabbler in witchcraft who offered an animal sacrifice to Marx" in some of Wednesday's newspapers after she had called for the bedroom tax to be abolished.

The bedroom tax has made huge problems even worse

When I met the Holden family back in January, they were worried – scared, even – about the looming arrival of the bedroom tax. They live in Hartlepool. Stuart, 36, and his wife Lorna, 33, have four kids: Faith, Noah, Elijah, and four-year-old Sam, who's autistic. In the five-bedroom home they rent from a local housing association, one room is given over to Sam, so he can use it as a sensory space: somewhere to calm down and readjust, which is therefore an essential part of his everyday life. Unfortunately, as they half-expected, this crucial detail has so far been steamrollered by Whitehall diktat, and the Holdens have been judged to be "under-occupying" by two bedrooms. As a result, their £114-a-week housing benefit has been suddenly cut by £28.

Bedroom Tax Protests Take Place Around The UK

Thousands of people around the country have protested against the so-called "bedroom tax", which will cut the benefit of social housing tenants with a spare room.

Campaigners, who have gathered in more than 50 towns, said the move targets the most vulnerable in society, including carers and the disabled.